All the beloved tropes of the mummy genre are present in the stories included in Modern Mummies: A Horror Anthology. But I applaud editor A.C. Bauer’s desire to expand the scope of what mummy horror can be. 

“By the World Forgot” by Mia Dalia is probably the most overt example of Bauer’s editorial directive. It’s also my favorite story in the collection. 

Readers are told that technology has radically improved the process of mummification. For example, when a corpse is on the slab during surgery, a doctor can remove specific bits of the brain as requested. An individual gets to decide which memories, preferences and desires to keep when reanimated. Unwanted pieces of the brain can simply be thrown away in the dumpster. 

It’s a pretty standard science fiction setup, neither good nor bad. Things get interesting when the story takes an unexpected versific-inspired twist. “Can a mummy live in peaceful ignorance?” asks the author, echoing Alexander Pope’s 18th century poem “Eloisa to Abeland.”

There are two other stories in this collection that really caught my attention, one by Carter Lappin and the other by Jennifer Lesh Fleck. Both concern the variants and vagaries of immortality. 

“Reanimation” follows the reanimation and recurring deaths of a mummy through multiple generations. Each time Mek rises from his sarcophagus, he meets new people who provide additional information about his situation, sometimes good and sometimes bad. Over time, he cannot escape a lingering identity crisis. “I’ve never known, really, if I was cursed or blessed,” he croaks. “Nobody ever told me.”

When Lana De’lonzo, a popular social media influencer, develops stage 4 colorectal cancer in a story called “In My Little, Dead Way,” she opts for a radical new medical procedure. She’s stuffed in a vat of honey and kept in stasis, waiting for science to find a cure for her illness. Her goal is to eventually return to TikTok and Instagram and continue creating content for her 1.8 million fans. In other words, she wants to live forever. With the help of her schlubby twin sister, she gets her wish—but in the most unexpected way imaginable. 

Modern Mummies contains other excellent stories as well—each one bending tropes to whatever extent possible. These stories include: “Bound by Love” by Stewart Moore, “Going Home” by Ute Orgassa (great name, btw), “Dead Kings, No Crowns” by Christopher La Vigna and “Rot” by Ray DeChant. “Servants of Frost and Madness” gets my vote for the story with the best ending.

To be honest, there’s only one bad contribution included in this anthology, and that’s “One Hundred Dead Cats.” No offense to the author or the good folks at Cat Eye Press, but one story with “cat-on-undead-cat violence” is one story too many. 

[ Modern Mummies: A Horror Anthology / Edited by A.C. Bauer / First Printing: August 2025 / ISBN: 9798991336727 ]